Sharing knowledge in the scientific network:: inventing rules for ⟪good conduct⟫ among researchers.

Due to new forms of collective invention, research networks or consortia, new rules are required to manage this knowledge, allowing for both a mutual sharing of knowledge and at the same time a certain degree of individual protection, or the right for university researchers to publish material, while keeping a reservation on results asked for by industrial firms. Researchers working on the Bridge lipase project came up with an ingenious way to diffuse data combining, at the same time, the possibilities to maintain the temporary reservation of rights for the data owner, to share the data within the collective sphere of the project and lastly to allow a relatively rapid publication of the data. This set of rules, developed by the researchers without any help from a legal department, will most likely be followed on scientific networks. These agreement consortia are bringing to light new rules, if not new rights, as regards knowledge management.